Europe is threatening to fine 8 Chinese airlines and 2 Indian carriers for failure to comply with EU-ETS regulations.

Both China and India have barred their airlines from cooperating with European regulators including failing make required activity reports.

On Friday, the EU said it would seek about €2.4 million in fines against the Chinese and Indian carriers.

Of course both the Chinese and Indian governments have said they stand behind their carriers and would consider "reciprocal measures" if the EU continued to push its unilateral actions.
For example Indian carriers have 5-6 daily operations in Europe, while European counter parts have 30-40 operations in India, which could be prove costly.

From my understanding, the EU itself has no standing since they don't have any air services agreement with the countries in question. It would be up to an individual EU country where the offending airline flies to enforce the scheme.

So what country will tell the Indians to pay up? Germany? France?... The same with China....

Having managed EU ETS compliance for a major airline, it doesn't matter if these are scheduled or unscheduled flights. If there is a diversion into an unscheduled airport and then the aircraft repositions to the scheduled airport, it is considered an intra-EU flight.

Example: if LHR runways are closed and Air India diverts to AMS and then flies the aircraft to AMS, Air India is responsible for the AMS-LHR emissions because it's between two EU airports.

Not saying you are wrong, but are Indian carriers using LHR or other UK airports for intra EU flights?

Same question for Germany and Chinese carriers.

IIANM, Each carrier would have to be cited by a country where they fly intra EU flights from or to.

I believe that's because enforcement of the ETS is divided up amongst various EU countries. Carriers are allocated to various countries who enforce against those airlines; there isn't a central enforcement agency of the EU for the ETS.

Quoting JoeCanuck (Reply 6):Good luck to the EU with that one. Carbon trading schemes are inane to begin with and the EU doesn't have the stones to start a trade war based on the nonsensical ETS.

Every time Brussels brings up the ETS, I wonder from what they're trying to distract our attention.

Got to agree with you here; I had thought this nonsense had been buried, but of course I underestimate the ability of the EU to shoot itself in the foot. The EU is a few grades above being a financial basket-case and it needs to maximise trade and commerce; this works against that and the harder they push it, the more damaging it will be.

This is very typical of the sort of unaccountable nonsense that will drive the UK out of the EU - not this alone, of course, but so many things which are imposed but which have no democratic mandate. However, this one is worthy of particular note because it is something which is likely to cause job losses and a competitive disadvantage to European trade, tourism and other areas.

Quoting kaitak (Reply 20):Drop it, for goodness sake, and get with the real world.

I'm pretty sure that ETS is dealing with a real world issue. And i'm pretty sure that the UK government is very much on board. Its strange how often people don't realise that the EU is just reflecting the wishes of its various members.

If the UK government has so much difficulty doing something about LHR, it shouldn't surprise anyone that it supports ETS.